Bee Bread Ameliorates Vascular Inflammation and Impaired Vasorelaxation in Obesity-Induced Vascular Damage Rat Model: The Role of eNOS/NO/cGMP-Signaling Pathway

Obesity and hyperlipidemia are major risk factors for developing vascular diseases. Bee bread (BB) has been reported to exhibit some biological actions, including anti-obesity and anti-hyperlipidemic. This study aims to investigate whether bee bread can ameliorate vascular inflammation and impaired vasorelaxation activity through eNOS/NO/cGMP pathway in obese rats. Forty male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups (n = 10/group), namely: control (normal group), obese rats (OB group), obese rats treated with bee bread (0.5 g/kg/day, OB/BB group) and obese rats treated with orlistat (10 mg/kg/day, OB/OR group). The latter three groups were given a high-fat diet (HFD) for 6 weeks to induced obesity before being administered with their respective treatments for another 6 weeks. After 12 weeks of the total experimental period, rats in the OB group demonstrated significantly higher Lee obesity index, lipid profile (total cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein), aortic proinflammatory markers (tumor necrosis factor-α, nuclear factor-κβ), aortic structural damage and impairment in vasorelaxation response to acetylcholine (ACh). Bee bread significantly ameliorated the obesity-induced vascular damage manifested by improvements in the lipid profile, aortic inflammatory markers, and the impaired vasorelaxation activity by significantly enhancing nitric oxide release, promoting endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) immunoexpression. These findings suggest that the administration of bee bread ameliorates the impaired vasorelaxation response to ACh by improving eNOS/NO/cGMP-signaling pathway in obese rats, suggesting its vascular therapeutic role.     

A novel double-circuit-rotor balanced induction motor for improvedslip-energy recovery drive performance. I. Modeling and simulation

A new construction for the rotor windings of balanced wound-rotor induction motors employed in the slip energy recovery drives is proposed, in this paper, to reduce the time harmonics which are commonly generated in the machine. The proposed machine has a double-circuit in the rotor. One circuit is star connected while the other is delta connected. Each of these two circuits is connected to a diode-bridge rectifier to achieve a twelve-pulse operation characteristics. The main objective of this paper is to develop a new model which is capable of simulating the proposed machine, neglecting nonlinearities due to magnetic saturation, and its associated converters. Such a model is further complicated due to the presence of the two rotor circuits and their mutual interaction     

Nitrogen dioxide effect in the reduction of nitric oxide by propane in oxidizing atmosphere

The role of nitrogen dioxide in the selective reduction of NO by propane over a Cu-MFI zeolite is investigated. NO₂ and NO reductions were carried out under similar conditions of reaction. In the presence of oxygen, the reduction of NO by C₃H₈ does not differ significantly from that of NO₂. In the absence of oxygen, the reduction of NO₂ by propane occurs with a partial decomposition of the nitric dioxide molecule. Such a decomposition leads to the formation of oxygen, which is responsible for the increase in catalytic activity by comparison with the same reaction performed with NO. NO₂ formed and released in the gas phase during the reduction of NO by propane in the presence of oxygen does not play a predominant role in the catalytic process.     

Impacts of green roofs and rain water use on the water balance and groundwater levels in urban areas

Ohne Zusammenfassung

---

Impacts of green roofs and rain water use on the water balance and groundwater levels in urban areas

     

设计企业项目管理信息系统的实现

结合国家“十五”重点科技攻关计划“城市规划、建设、管理与服务数字化工程”项目,天津水泥工业设计研究院承担了其中的“勘察设计企业信息化应用软件示范应用”专题,并获批立项,签署了专题任务书。两年来,院项目实施小组和软件公司进行了长期、紧密的合作,遵照标准化、系统化和集成化的原则,共同搭建了“工程协同设计管理平台”。在软件功能上,实现了设计企业管理信息系统的主要功能;在软件技术上,采用了目前最流行的软件技术,结合现代项目管理方法,为设计企业提供了组态灵活,方便实用,具有良好扩展性及开放性的软件产品。目前,该系统已经在部分工程项目上全面运行,取得了预期的效果。     

Privacy issues in a psychiatric context: applying the ISD privacy framework to a psychiatric behavioural monitoring system

Privacy issues are frequently discussed amongst researchers, practitioners and patients in healthcare. However, psychiatric patients’ privacy issues get less attention in information system development (ISD), whereby they are one of the most important stakeholders. This paper applies Carew and Stapleton’s ISD privacy framework to psychiatric monitoring systems to understand the issues that are related to monitoring psychiatric patients’ behaviour. By understanding the privacy issues amongst patients, the research will be able to provide guidance to system developers to produce a privacy-sensitive system that can contribute to the system engineering for international stability. We will elaborate each factor in the framework (physical, social, psychological and informational) and then explain the relationship to the privacy of psychiatric patient.     

A fuzzy constraint-based approach to data reconciliation in material flow analysis

Data reconciliation consists in modifying noisy or unreliable data in order to make them consistent with a mathematical model (herein a material flow network). The conventional approach relies on least-squares minimization. Here, we use a fuzzy set-based approach, replacing Gaussian likelihood functions by fuzzy intervals, and a leximin criterion. We show that the setting of fuzzy sets provides a generalized approach to the choice of estimated values, that is more flexible and less dependent on oftentimes debatable probabilistic justifications. It potentially encompasses interval-based formulations and the least squares method, by choosing appropriate membership functions and aggregation operations. This paper also lays bare the fact that data reconciliation under the fuzzy set approach is viewed as an information fusion problem, as opposed to the statistical tradition which solves an estimation problem.     

304 Stainless steel oxidation in sulfate and sulfate+ bicarbonate solutions

The electrochemical characterization of 304 stainless steel in 0.1–0.5m Na2SO4 and Na2SO4 + NaHCO3 aqueous solutions at pH8 was done in combination with SEM surface analysis. Passivation of the surface film without any pitting events is observed for the current–potential and current–time experiments, and no anodic current spikes, which are associated with depassivation events, are distinguishable above the background current level. However, SEM pictures of an electrode surface polarized at potentials above 0.4V show microscopic pit nucleation. Even when the metal may be regarded as passive from a current–time or current–potential characteristics, passivity is not stable and localized film breakdown can still occur. The events are ascribed to pit nucleation at the active inclusion sites. The pits do not grow even into the metastable state but die through repassivation by metal salt precipitation immediately after birth. The effect is ascribed to the solubility of metal salts with the electrolyte produced by dissolution in the nucleation sites. The results show that pit nucleation and pit growth are two distinct processes. The importance of solution composition and the protective effect of bicarbonate ions is also discussed.     

Physical Violence Detection Based on Distributed Surveillance Cameras

Mobile Networks and Applications - In recent years, physical violence detection has become a research hotspot in the area of human activity recognition. With the improvement and full coverage of...